


Iudicium

by fireweed15



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Comfort/Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 10:41:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15772473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireweed15/pseuds/fireweed15
Summary: There are, of course, many kinds of guilt—some of them, like relating to a crime, are easy to uncover. Others are… thornier.





	Iudicium

Sometimes I feel like I spend entirely too much time on… _extracurriculars._

In all technicality, I'm supposed to be working with Countess Nadia to find a killer—in specific, Count Lucio's killer, and even more specifically, the lead (and only) suspect, Doctor Julian Devorak.

The good news is I found him. The bad news… well, I'm trying not to use the phrase _sleeping with the enemy_ , but it's hard to deny the way Julian's body has curled to nestle against me like a spoon, our hands loosely laced together in sleep, rising and falling slowly with his breathing. Rain patters insistently on the roof of an out of the way inn Julian knows and has squirreled us away for the night.

If this isn't sleeping with the enemy, then it's definitely a violation of the Countess' trust in me, and in my skills—but by the same turn, my feeling that Julian isn't guilty of the murder grows stronger by the day. I only need to find the evidence, and who better to assist in that than the man who has the most vested interest in the outcome of my investigation into his innocence?

It's not an extracurricular—it's… a way to uncover the truth.

It seems like sleep is coming to claim me when the grip on my hand tightens. This, I've discovered, is nothing new—but the intensity with which Julian grips my fingers, to say nothing of the fact that he hasn't released my hand, is…

His grip tightens still, his expression becoming almost—strike that, _decidedly_ troubled. Whatever he's dreaming about, it's punctuated by soft, almost pained moans. Whenever a word or phrase slips out, it's in a Nevivonian dialect—a dialect with which I am mostly unfamiliar. When it's not a moan, his voice takes on the soft keen of an almost _desperate_ plea.

"Julian—" With no small measure of effort, I pull my hand from his and rest it on his arm. "Julian, you're dreaming—"

My words have no effect; if anything, the dreams—nightmares—seem to become more troublesome. "Julian, wake up—" I'm propped up on one elbow, shaking his shoulder. " _Ilya—_!"

I can't be sure if it's my voice or a break in the dreams that did it, but he bolts upright in a cold sweat, gasping for air. His fists are balled up in the bedclothes, and he looks around wildly for a moment before our eyes connect. After a moment, some of the tension releases from his shoulders. "Nightmare—just a nightmare…" It sounds like he's trying to convince himself, rather than speak to me.

"Are you okay?" I lay a hand on his chest, fingers thrumming softly. It's hardly the first time I've used healing magic like this. "Let me—"

"Don't—" He removes my hand from his chest, holding it loosely for a moment, before returning it to me. "No magic. I don't… Thank you, though."

My fingers curl against the bedclothes. "What happened?"

"Just a bad dream," he repeats.

My hand slides forward, our fingers brushing. "C'mon, Julian… Please?"

He pats my hand; normally I would relish the gesture, but now it feels dismissive and patronizing—no… it feels like he's _hiding something_. "Some things are best left in the past, my dear."

_In the past_ —"Rather than in dreams?"

The words come out soft but direct. The tops of Julian's ears turn pink, the color quickly spreading to the rest of his face, and he looks down and away. "I can only imagine what you heard," he mumbles.

I wrap an arm around his shoulders. "Talk to me, Ilya—please?"

The familiarity of his given name seems to soften him a bit; there's a long pause before he sighs, running a hand through mussed curls. When he speaks, it's little more than a whisper. "Do you remember the Plague?"

There was a heaviness to the words that demands my full attention. There's still a wealth of memories I'm missing, and the Plague is among them. "Not a lot of it," I admit. What I know is strictly from a factual standpoint—symptoms, the swiftness with which it struck and its indiscriminate nature…

Julian huffs softly, looking at me out of the corner of his eye. "Consider yourself blessed," he mumbles.

"That's what you were dreaming about, wasn't it?" I murmur, shifting my hand to rest in the middle of his back. The cold sweat that makes his shirt stick to his skin makes my fingers feel clammy.

A slow nod. "There’s… _so many._ " He swallows hard, as if forcing himself to continue. "The _scope_ of it—nothing prepared you for just how many people got it and how _quickly_ —" He gestures wildly, the words picking up speed. "You're researching and experimenting for a cure and talking to other doctors and—and all that on top of _patients._ There's just—there's… so many _fucking_ people, all sick and desperate and dying and you want to help them all, but you _can't_ and—"

He stops, meeting my gaze with an expression of genuine pain. "It was the ones… you thought they had a chance, when they died, it hit you the hardest."

"I'm sorry." It's the only thing I can think to say. "If there was a way I could have helped back then, I certainly would have done it."

Even in the darkness, there's an obvious shine in Julian's gaze—the shine of unwept tears. The words seem to break down the last of his resolves as he pulls me into a tight, desperate embrace.

For a moment, I'm not entirely certain what to do; finally, as I lift my arms to loosely return the gesture, pained sobs wrack his body. I rub small, comforting circles on his back, letting him weep. His grip on me tightens, like he’s afraid to let go. "I could have done more—" A shaky gasp before his hides his face in my hair. "I could have—"

"You did _so much_ , Ilya," I soothe, resting my head on his shoulder. Being a doctor during the Red Plague couldn’t have been easy, and I feel a twinge of sorrow for him for having to have done it. "You saved _a lot_ of people."

He trembles in my hold, and I realize he’s shaking his head. "For every person I saved, I could have saved a dozen more if I—" The could and should and would are drowned out by his bitter cries.

I can’t, with any certainty, speak to his guilt or innocence when it comes to Count Lucio’s death, but I can certainly assure you, the guilt Julian Devorak carries from the Red Plague is punishment enough.


End file.
